Why not? Because that's not his strength. Sure you can ask him to do it but you won't get a particular great result doing so. Tonali can pass, but that really isn't what he's there for and if that's the expectation he's a bad buy because you don't pay £100m for Tonali's passing range. It's just not of that standard.
Fernandes is more suited to that role between the 3 starting quality CMs we have. If you want a midfielder to break the lines with their passing its Fernandes who should be the one doing it and I expect that is exactly why we bought him. That is his strength much more so than Bentancur or Tonali.
For me it's fairly obvious that a midfield 3 of Fernandes, Tonali & Bentancur/Gallagher is too static and that blend doesn't cover all the roles needed in a 433/4231. If we were to play this way then you have to put so much more importance on the creativity and quality of the wings. As that is where the playmaking, incision, precision and goal scoring would all have to come from. Ala Liverpool circa the Klopp era with Mane and Salah. We don't have wide players of that quality or even skillset blend to do this so we do need to spread this responsibilities into the more traditional 10 area.
The general system I see lots of green shoots for, it's just lacking that 10 that is causing a lot of issues. We are unable to drive at defences or really pierce through the lines with quality. I do think it will come when Kulu and Maddison are back up and running at full speed, it's just that full speed might take a while.
